Stimulus and Government

John Phipps has a long post, arguing for stimulus investment in infrastructure as opposed to tax cuts. It's worth reading. Two points he misses, though:

• government spending on infrastructure is highly visible. We can see how FSA spends its millions, and thus judge whether or not it spends them wisely or not, or even spends them timely. We can't similarly see the ways in which tax cuts are used.
  
• there's the assumption that government will be more stupid in its spending than the private sector. Again, because of the difference in visibility, the assumption can't be proved. Suppose a tax cut goes mostly to personal consumption spending, meals out, bigger cars, bigger houses, more vacations, more luxuries. My Calvinistic forebears shout from their graves that's wasteful, not productive.
  

FSA, IT, and Stimulus

Here's an article on Nextgov about FSA and the $245 million. Two of the final paragraphs:

Patrick Hanley, project manager for the program to modernize the farm benefits system, said the agency is working closely with the Office of Management and Budget to make sure the new systems would comply with the federal enterprise architecture, to ensure FSA's systems can share information with other federal agencies. Hanley said the $245 million in the House stimulus bill would allow FSA to stabilize the current infrastructure and initiate modernization efforts. The money would satisfy estimates for the first two years of implementation, Taitano said.

Agency officials also are looking into commercial off-the-shelf software solutions that could help with payment processing, according to Hanley. But the initial focus will be on infrastructure and making sure the back-end servers and network are capable of handling the volume of transactions at FSA, he said.

Many years ago (i.e., 1989) we were working on the cost-benefit justification for the replacement of the System/36's with the idea there would be a big bang, big buy. Like Sisyphus, we kept rolling the rock up the hill, and having it come back and squash us. Best I can tell, in the 20 years since there was a piecemeal replacement of System/36's with AS/400's, a gradual migration of some common functions and certain programs to the Internet, and a bit of integration between NRCS and FSA. (I'm probably biased in my assessment.)

To the extent USDA needs to buy more servers and network hardware, that should be doable within this FY. That is, it may be "shovel ready". I don't know about software development--GAO has questioned USDA's management of the MIDAS project. See my posts here and here

FSA has moved its payment function out of the county offices to centralized processing in Kansas City. That's been operational for a month or so, and hasn't blown up, yet. So I'm not clear on what COTS (commercial off-the-shelf software) could help.

Geithner and Turbo Tax--the Loss of Expertise

Jim Lindgren at Volokh tries to recapitulate Mr. Geithner's experience using Turbotax back when he was an IMF employee and failed to file properly (as self-employed). I think it's an example of the loss of expertise when we incorporate knowledge into our tools. I know when I filed my taxes on paper, I was much more aware of what I was doing than when I answer Turbotax's question. As I told my wife, it's sort of a mindless exercise now (which made her feel very good about the accuracy of our returns).

It's the same sort of thing I saw back when I worked for ASCS:

A district director took me around his district in North Carolina. He told me he tried to have his office managers (i.e., CED's) assign their best clerk to handling "reconstitutions" (i.e., the changing of farm records), because it was complex and important. Some 15-20 years later I found myself responsible for the people who were automating the process, trying (and perhaps failing) to make it simple and easy for any program assistant to handle.

Along the same lines, I remember an employee discussing the new word processor (one of the first with a CRT screen where you could actually insert and cut and paste and see the results of your action). She said it was nice, but she used to be proud of her ability to type fast with no mistakes. And now she was losing it, because the machine took away the premium on not making errors.

Just as, baling hay rendered obsolete the skill of making a good load of hay on the haywagon (i.e., defined as one where you got the maximum of hay on the wagon, placing your fork-fulls so that the hay bound together (i.e., being attentive to the direction the stalks of hay were lying on the wagon). And I suppose now the skill of stacking rectangular hay bales on the wagon or truck is obsolete, as you just use the forklift on the tractor to move the big round bales.

Cheering Thought for Farmers

Brad DeLong posted a link to this old Jared Diamond article, entitled "The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race", which was the invention of agriculture.

There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (Today just three high-carbohydrate plants--wheat, rice, and corn--provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some archaeologists think it was crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted disease, but this is a chicken-and-egg argument, because crowding encourages agriculture and vice versa.) Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities.

So, farmers are the root of all evil.

Early Up, Pigford

Pigford and civil rights is an early topic for Secretary Vilsack. (I like the name--I can remember how to spell it, I could never remember with Schafer whether there was a "c" or not, how many "e's", etc. and I'm too lazy to look it up.) He also in his remarks hits the food issue.

We See Ourselves? in Him and His Speech

Professor Stanley Fish at the NYTimes discusses the inaugural speech as an example of "parataxis" (which I translate as one damned thing after another). Dr. Krauthammer at the Post discusses how flat the speech was and how interesting the speaker is. I've seen lots of other reactions, which range over a wide spectrum, mostly following political preferences.

Twill be interesting to see how it looks 10 years from now.

Newsflash: President Has a Bit of Power

For those who were worried over whether President Obama really has any power, the sad news is he lost his Blackberry. According to Treehugger he gets a secure replacement. So even a President can't resist government rules and regulations. Long live the bureaucracy.

Reminder to Foodies: Advise and Consent

The "foodies" (i.e., organic, locavore, sustainable advocates) have been proposing names, first for Secretary of Agriculture and now for posts within ag. I found the following excerpt from a Government Executive piece on USDA appointment to be a reminder of where the power really is:

Meanwhile, a House Agriculture Committee member and a key Senate aide said they believe Chuck Hassebrook, executive director for the Center for Rural Affairs, is a top candidate for deputy secretary.

Other Capitol Hill sources said a Hassebrook nomination would be highly controversial and might not make it out of the Senate Agriculture Committee because he has been such a strong critic of farm programs. Hassebrook is an advocate of strict farm program payment limits and favors more spending on nonagricultural rural development.

Lesson to the Alice Waters of the world: you don't have the power. To get it, you need an "Emily's List" and get your hands dirty, not cleaning vegetables but in the day to day politicking that elects Reps and Senators.

Finally the Truth: Elections Are About Cats

From an interview at the Monkey Cage (with a political scientist who ran as a libertarian in NC governorship race):

Political scientists tend to think elections are “about” issues. I think elections are about cats. Specifically: would I let this [candidate] watch my cat for a week? Would I give him the key to my house? Would I trust her to feed ol’ Tabby, and change his litterbox? Issues are secondary. People vote for the person that they think they can trust.

And a compliment for a blogger I follow:

Drezner, on the other hand, has the perfect mindset. He is just serious enough, and has a heterodox moderate-right-libertarian political viewpoint that makes almost EVERYONE angry, and certainly makes everyone think. To my mind, Drezner is the best poli sci blogger, and always will be. A good poli sci blog has to focus on world affairs and trade, not just the U.S.

FOIA and Sec 1619

A commenter asks whether Obama's executive order on FOIA impacts Sec. 1619 of the 2008 farm bill. (See my previous post.) My answer, given with a little research but no law degree is: No.

I think 5 USC Sec.552, the FOIA, has the answer in

(b) This section does not apply to matters that are-- ... (3) specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than section 552b of this title), provided that such statute (A) requires that the matters be withheld from the public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue, or (B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld;

I think Sec. 1619 exempts the data from disclosure.